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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 12 Oct 1998 19:44:56 GMT+0200
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Hi Joop/All
 
Joop you mention that in Burkino Faso you saw how people raided
beehives by smoking the bees out and taking out the honey.
 
This is pretty much standard practise from there down to us here on
the tip of african (another 6000km south) - as far as traditional
keepers go.
 
Africa is a funny place - it is climatically confused on the whole -
hence making approximations of honey yield per hive is difficult. In
my area, the eastern cape, the rural Xhosa people raid beehives to
the point of disaster. A beehive will not have been in place for more
than a few months and blat it is munched.
 
Given that spaces for beehives vary from as little as a shoe box to
as great as things like cupboards, small caves, old cars and so on
there is great varyation in the size and yeild. Given that over much
of southern africa rainfall can vary by as much as 60% from year to
year (say a good year followed by an el-nino) the yeild per year is
great.
 
As far as traditional beekeepers on the net go - I can say quite
safely that no traditional beekeeper will ever be able to get enough
money together to pay for an internet site in africa - the profit
margins on smelly smokey honey that is badly filtered are just not
good enough.
 
At the moment we have some people (a Xhosa gang) here in my area that
have a rather novel way of extracting honey. They find a beehive and
kill the bees with Doom, a local spray organophos poison. They then
take out the honey and sell it on the streets. This sort of honey
would never make it into our first world sector here as it looks and
smells horrible - but to an under educated person from a poor
background a nice chunk of honey is worth it. (As an aside I had an
interesting experience once trying to calm down a beehive that one of
these informal beekeepers had tried to silence with insect repellant!
The bees went mad and stung him all the way to hospital, as well as
killing a few dogs etc).
 
In South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and Namibia there are
established commercial beekeeping enterprises that use modern
technology and produce decent crops. In SA and Zim it is best
developed.
 
Keep well
 
Garth
 
Garth Cambray           Camdini Apiaries
15 Park Road
Grahamstown             Apis mellifera capensis
6139
South Africa
 
Time = Honey
 
If you are not living on the edge you are taking up too much space!!

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